Raise the Hammer

Youth Culture Shifts Away from Cars and Driving

Just what is with kids nowadays? After decades of enthrallment with automobiles and the supposed freedom they confer, young people are rapidly losing interest. A post on Streetsblog today corrals recent essays from the L.A. Times, Slate and CNN that all point to the same conclusion: not only is driving falling among teenagers and young adults, but interest in driving is falling as well.

The trend predates the economic crash of 2008 and is not merely a matter of young people not being able to afford the maintenance, gasoline and insurance that go along with driving. Kids in Los Angeles, once a shrine to easy motoring, are simply interested in other things.

The changes in Crenshaw's car culture have been even more dramatic. In the 1990s, the Los Angeles Police Department cracked down on the Sunday night cruising ritual, which barely exists now. More recently, African American teenagers, like teenagers across Southern California, have traded an obsession with cars for ones with smartphones and bicycles.

"Personally I don't really want to drive that much because I don't want to pay for gas," said Terry Monday, a 17-year-old high school student.

"Me and a couple of friends, we'd rather work on our fixies," he added, referring to customizable fixed-gear bikes that have become popular among L.A. teenagers, "or spend money on clothes or on our phones."

At dusk on a recent Sunday evening, it was easy to see evidence of the shift. At the corner of Crenshaw and Imperial Highway, a gleaming burgundy Chevrolet Impala convertible carrying three middle-aged African Americans idled at a red light.

Before the light could turn, a half-dozen African American and Latino teenagers passed by on their bikes, some of which were as carefully polished as the Impala. Three more teenagers on fully detailed bikes went by, then another four, laughing as they raced east into the darkness.

These days, L.A. is becoming known as much for a tall, dense downtown core serviced by practical high quality transit as for its epic freeways and herculean traffic jams. Residents and politicians from both parties have voted to invest in a network of rapid transit lines including light rail transit, subways and busways (demonstrating, once again, that competent leadership in great cities transcends partisanship).

But the trend is widespread across North America. Young people would rather live in more urban environments and have easy access to social networks - both online and in real life - than have to pay for a car that is more troublemaker than liberator.

A report in CNN Money notes that new car purchases among 18-34 year olds has dropped 30% since 2007. Noting that re-urbanization has put more people in reach of transit, the report adds:

But mostly it's the explosion of social media. Car ownership just may not be as socially important as it used to be. "What we used to do in cars, young people are now doing online," said one analyst at a recent oil conference.

The ability to meet and interact with people on the Internet is largely replacing the need to hop in a car and cruise down the strip.

Couple that with more recent restrictions on driving - later ages for licenses, limits on how many people can be in the car, restrictions on cell phone use - and the Internet may be surpassing the automobile in the category that gave cars so much appeal: freedom.

"When I got into a vehicle, it represented me going to meet my friends," said Craig Giffi, automotive practice leader at the consultancy Deloitte. "For them, it cuts them off from their friends."

More data, this time from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, confirms that annual per capita vehicle miles travelled among 16-34 year olds dropped from 10,300 miles (16,576 km) in 2001 to 7,900 miles (12,714 km) in 2009 - a 23 percent decline.

Meanwhile, cycling is up 24 percent among the same age group.

Curiously, the decline in driving was biggest among the most affluent young people, suggesting that the shift is more cultural than economic. 16-34 year olds with a family income over $70,000 USD increased transit use by 100 percent, cycling by 122 percent and walking by 37 percent.

The question is: will Hamilton ever get serious about reforming our land use and transportation policy to take this shift into consideration?

If we continue to build on the assumption of ever-increasing driving, we will not only continue to allocate scarce public resources on infrastructure with poor returns and big negative externalities, but will also miss out on attracting a whole generation of young people whose idea of high quality living does not mean a suburban house and a commute.

Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. He also maintains a personal website and has been known to post passing thoughts on Twitter @RyanMcGreal.

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By Springfield (anonymous) | Posted September 18, 2012 at 15:02:18

I don't know if I would say $70K+ is an affluent household. It's strikes me as simply the supra-median. (Hamilton's median household income in 2006 was $66,810, for example, compared to $69,156 province-wide.)

When I read that "16-34 year olds with a family income over $70,000 USD increased transit use by 100 percent, cycling by 122 percent and walking by 37 percent," I do wonder what the baseline numbers were like, and where they were recorded.

Did they only take a couple of bus trips a year but ended up logging four? Was there a huge increase in subway traffic in major metros, but negigible gains elsewhere? And why do we seem to be comparing "use" to "distance" in some of these formulations? Does anyone calculate "vehicle" miles for car/bus/bike classifications?

Household earnings notwithstanding, what role might historic levels of youth unemployment (around 20% in the US, apparently twice that in some areas of Europe) have with regard to new car purchases among that cohort? Are they simply buying used cars and driving less? Or are those who buy cars actually driving them further (eg. 30% fewer cars travelling 23% fewer miles).

I'm not disputing that there's something happening here, but IMHO what it is ain't exactly clear.

By LOL all over again (anonymous) | Posted September 18, 2012 at 15:05:29

you start by stating that youngsters have less interest in driving and more interest in other things like fixies. Then the rest of your essay goes on to quote some of these youngsters as saying "Personally I don't really want to drive that much because I don't want to pay for gas,".
That does not sound like a lack of interest in driving but as a lack of funds to support driving. I have 2 kids in that age group and interest in driving with them and all their friends is very much alive and well.

The single reason their are not more cars amongst them and their friends is lack of money. Kids are staying in school longer and not starting to work at a decent job until later in their life thus putting off the day that they can afford to get their own set of wheels. The cost of insurance alone is a major obstacle to young guys getting their own cars.

You can try and bend the facts to support your own biases and beliefs but the truth is not that hard to figure out.

Is their a real reason that my old screen name now comes up "Sorry, but that screen name is not available."

Since you seem to favour reasoning by anecdote, here's an anecdote for you.

I grew up in a Toronto suburb and really started to feel trapped by the time I was a teenager. It was difficult and unpleasant to get anywhere without driving: the community design was low density and single-use, sidewalks were narrow and scarce, and the bus system was bare-bones.

I turned 16 in late 1989 and immediately went out to get my 365 (what we called the Ontario driving learner's permit at the time), just like every single person I knew when they turned 16. I also promptly bought my first car, an old Plymouth hatchback, even though I couldn't drive it yet.

I got my licence in mid-1990, just as war in the Middle East was heating up and the country was crashing into a sharp, deep recession following the collapse of the real estate market (sound familiar?). Oil prices tripled in just a few months and jobs were scarce, but that didn't stop me from trading my hatchback for a metallic brown 1980 Firebird.

I really couldn't afford it, but the mere idea of not owning a car, let along having a driver's licence, was pretty much unthinkable.

I was lucky to have a job (I lived in a single-parent household and had to pay for the car myself), but even people who couldn't afford their own cars were still able to beg-borrow their parents'.

Neither our collective fear of the Gulf War, nor the oil price shock, nor the recession caused by the Bank of Canada's tight monetary policy, came anywhere close to stopping me and my peers from getting our licences and pursuing our own cars.

If someone had shrugged and said they'd rather work on their freaking bicycle than get a car, we would have thought they'd gone loopy.

That's car culture in a nutshell: the automobile is so deeply ingrained in one's identity and sense of mobility that it's not even a matter of discussion, let alone debate. To paraphrase O Brother Where Art Thou?, "you ain't no kind of man if you ain't got wheels."

That just isn't true any more. My older son is 17 and he has no real interest in getting a licence any time soon. (None of his friends are in a rush to get their driver's licences, either.) It's not a matter of not being able to afford it, either: in inflation-adjusted terms, our household is more affluent than mine was when I was his age.

Rather, there are two new dynamics at play: 1) his identity is not tied into whether he can drive; and 2) he does not feel trapped inside his house, since he has far more options to walk, cycle or take transit to a wide variety of destinations.

I'd add: 3) walking, cycling and transit are no longer regarded as inferior to driving. When you're connected wirelessly to the largest dynamic repository of human knowledge and realtime communication in the history of the world, driving is a liability and walking/cycling/transit are liberating.

The landscape is shifting. The postwar suburban consensus is breaking up. Even many people who buy suburban houses only do it because they can't afford to live in more location-efficient neighbourhoods - and that, in turn, is due to a legacy of federal, provincial and municipal policies and subsidies that artificially reduce the cost of sprawl while artificially raising the cost of urban development.

The faster we recognize that the market is changing and revise our policies to reflect the growing demand for high quality urban living, the sooner we will be able to take advantage of the essential economies of cities that make high quality urban living so desirable and productive.

If we fail to do this, the city will continue to underperform economically and culturally while municipal revenues lag further and further behind burgeoning operating and lifecycle costs.

We have an epochal opportunity to change the city's trajectory after more than a half-century of suburban sprawl and urban decline. We have an opportunity to fire up the city's economic engine and breathe new life into its streets and neighbourhoods, to cultivate the next generation of innovative businesses, to celebrate the fruits of human creativity that flow out of the rich and serendipitous connections that only city living can provide.

By LOL all over again (anonymous) | Posted September 19, 2012 at 21:16:25
in reply to Comment 80990

I am not reasoning by anecdote. I am merely trying to show you the error of your ways. It is way to easy to look at a study's numbers and jump to the wrong conclusion, especially if you are desperate to find anything to justify your existing beliefs.

I bought an African amulet some years ago that was said to ward off man eating tigers. I don't believe in such superstitions but I really liked the thing as a piece of jewelry so I bought it. Now 22 years later I have never been threatened or even seen a man eating tiger so obviously the amulet really does ward off man eating tigers. It must be worth millions.

Any assumptions drawn from a study's numbers must be looked at very carefully and great care taken to get the right cause and effect.

By Chris Angel (registered) | Posted September 20, 2012 at 11:55:51
in reply to Comment 81062

The desire NOT to own an automobile is nothing new. I tried relying on public transit, walking and cycling from 1973-1978. I had a drivers licence but I did not want to own a conventional vehicle. It seemed to me that many people were working largely to own a vehicle while the commute was depleting the vehicle. Like a dog chasing its tail the process never ended. I did not enjoy driving enough to participate in this or the "trade in every 3 years" or status rituals associated with automobile ownership. I thought I was prepared to wait either for a vehicle not based on planned obsolecence or that I would be satisfied with the public transit option. However employment is a neccesity and public transit at the time was not up to providing access to where I needed to work. I capitulated and bought a vehicle. Public transit is somewhat better today but it is still not very good. By carefully choosing where you reside it may be possible to rely on transit to get you to work. However given the average employment duration these days you are likely to move every 3-5 years; perhaps less frequently if you are lucky enough to find two succesive jobs in the same area. Yes there are still conflicting forces at work but a public transit commute is feasable for more people now than ever before. This trend is likely to continue. High unemployment and the service industry / part-time / no benefit / low wage employment trends will continue as well at least for the next few years. This will make vehicle ownership impractical for anyone in that situation. Though I really do not enjoy negativity these concerning trends may last longer than just the next few years. Ontario's industrial based economy has been decimated. It was shipped to the south eastern US & Mexico and from there to China & India. It is not coming back without a political will that does not exist at this time in any provincial or national party. Conventional vehicle ownership will at laest be questioned by more people than ever before. This is not a left / right political thing. I think from your comments you feel it is "the left" calling the sanctity of car ownership into question when there is no such trend. It really is a matter of simple logic. Given the state of the North American economy and the increasing cost of vehicle ownership how could it be otherwise? I think the kernel of logic in your arguement is that perhaps temporarily there may be an incremental trend away from vehicle ownership and that this will disappear when the economy improves. I have no doubt that some will purchase cars as the economy or their personal finances improve. Others will discover they don't really need or want to own one. In the middle ground many will find (as a family) they do not need two vehicles or that they are well served owning one highway capable vehicle and one 70Km /Hr "town" vehicle. I know they don't exist right now but they could and they should. It would help rebuild that decimated industrial base in this province. Keep an open mind, the trend away from car ownership is not huge right now, people still love their cars as did their grandparents. The factors affecting car ownership are different now. We live in a landscape of dollar stores, franchised business staffed by minimun wage part-time workers and the remains of an industrial economy uncommitted to this province or even this country. The day of the horse & buggy ended with the mass produced automobile. The transition to alternative transportation will not be as revolutionary a change but I am quite certain of its arrival by sheer necessity.

Please explain the rise in urban living, walkable communities and other modes of transport seen all over N. America. Hamilton is seeing the rise in urban living and families downtown, but due to intentional choices meant to eliminate options we're not seeing much of an increase in cycling, transit use or walking...although, even in harsh, hostile, dangerous conditions we are seeing increases...just very small ones. With any leadership or 21st Century thinking at the Hall, we'd see great gains in these area of transport especially given our dense, compact urban core.

"Wards 1-5 lost an average of 423 residents each between 2006 and 2011.... Meanwhile, the two wards responsible for most city-wide growth between 2006 and 2011 are wards 11 (Glanbrook) and 12 (Ancaster), which grew by approximately 38% and 12%, respectively. Needless to day, nearly all that growth was single family residential sprawl on new greenfields."

http://www.raisethehammer.org/article/1541/

"Over the past five years Hamilton has grown at a rate of 3%, falling 50,000 people short of growth plan forecasts for 2031. Between 2001 and 2006, the growth rate was only 2.9%, one of the lowest of Ontario cities and less than half of the actual provincial rate (6.6%) for that time period."

Compare this to 2006-2011 growth rates among our eastern neighbours: 6.9% for Burlington, 10.2% for Oakville, 6.7% for Halton and 56.5% for Milton. And yet by some accounts we're supposed to be the country's hottest real estate market. Go figure.

The whole problem in Hamilton is that our development policies still punish and deter infill and urban form in general and strongly favour/incentivize single-use suburban sprawl. My thesis is that this is a bad idea that is leaving us with a legacy of economically under-performing, expensive-to-maintain land use while we miss out on the opportunity to attract young people looking for a more urban lifestyle.

Even now, many people are buying suburban houses only because that's all they can afford (thanks to market-distorting public policies), not because that's the lifestyle they're looking for. "Drive 'til you qualify" isn't exactly a celebration of long commutes and attenuated social lives.

By LOL all over again (anonymous) | Posted September 19, 2012 at 07:14:43
in reply to Comment 80991

The cheapest housing in Hamilton is not located in the burbs. No matter how much you wish to distort the truth the cheapest housing is located in the inner city. Yet people with the financial ability tend to avoid it like the plague. For the price of one house in Ancaster you could buy half a dozen homes in the core yet people with money flock to Ancaster and avoid the core.

This is not just Ancaster but applies to Dundas and Stoney Creek as well. Just compare the price of a new home on the south mountain to an existing home in the core and the more affordable home is certainly not on the hill. How do you get away with distorting the truth and your blatant lies.

I can appreciate and to a certain extent commend your passion for your pet causes, LRT, urban intensification, etc. but please stop the blatant lying and fabrication.

By jason (registered) | Posted September 20, 2012 at 09:21:04
in reply to Comment 81005

I just spent more per sq. foot for my home in Strathcona than one I could have purchased in a new development near Redeemer U in Ancaster. Yes, the central lower city is cheaper than the burbs, but neighbourhoods around downtown have seen a real jump in prices the past decade.

By jason (registered) | Posted September 18, 2012 at 18:19:07
in reply to Comment 80982

however, over the past 10 years two of Hamilton's highest growth census areas were downtown. Which is much more impressive than a growth rate of 30 plus % on land that housed mostly animals and weeds the previous census.

We should be comparing ourselves to Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto etc... not suburban areas like Milton. Been there. Done that. It doesn't work.

By LOL all over again (anonymous) | Posted September 19, 2012 at 21:25:12
in reply to Comment 80983

I would like to know where you get your 30 plus% from. Just from being around the city for a few years I have not seen any area that could realistically claim a 30% increase. At least in the inner city some of the burbs have gotten a lot bigger by constructing whole subdivisions of new expensive housing. Still doubt it's 30% that's a pretty big jump.

Ward 11's explosive growth is chiefly due to the roll-out of Multi-Area Developments' Summit Park (a billion-dollar subdivision of 3,200 homes said to create "a 10,000-resident neighbourhood") and Losani-Branthaven collaboration The Fairgrounds (with its million-dollar sales centre), which have largely come online during the last census period.

By Fred Street (anonymous) | Posted September 18, 2012 at 19:12:09
in reply to Comment 80983

I'm less convinced of this phenomenal upswing in urban living, much as I would like to be.

Four tracts in Ward 2 registered population gains in the last census. Only one spiked: CT5370036, home to the Terraces on King. That tract logged a 701-resident gain in the last census, the only one of the four to score a triple digit increase. The other three combined added 175.

The bigger picture has been remarkably sedate. Ward 2's population has experienced net growth of 1,702 over the last 25 years, peaking in 2001.

I cited Halton only to demonstrate that the suburban inclination is not an exclusively Hamiltonian tic. Again, as much as I adore Hamilton's core, I would wager that yawned-about places like Burlington and Oakville are growing population in their respective downtowns more successfully than Hamilton is.

I would wager that yawned-about places like Burlington and Oakville are growing population in their respective downtowns more successfully than Hamilton is.

That in itself is the most damning indictment of Hamilton's abject failure to leverage its existing built form - a free gift from the past - for urban reinvestment. How can we, when we explicitly limit density targets so they don't threaten Hamilton's sprawl plans?

By jason (registered) | Posted September 20, 2012 at 09:24:57
in reply to Comment 81007

You make a great point here that I keep harping on - the need for family friendly housing downtown. Be it stacked towns, high-rise 3 bedroom apartments/condos etc.... I know downtown's are quite often 'singles-heavy'. Look at TO. Hardly a kid or married couple in sight downtown. Hamilton has the advantage of great family home neighbourhoods mere steps from King and James. Parks, rec centres, local shops, safe streets, waterfront links etc.... are all necessary to lure more families downtown.
My neighbourhood has seen a real jump in young families during the past number of years, as has Kirkendall and now even Durand and the North End. But we need to add thousands of new families to all the singles that will surely purchase condos and lofts coming up.

By Fred Street (anonymous) | Posted September 18, 2012 at 19:22:43
in reply to Comment 80984

Correction: 1,704 over 25 years.

And again, this is simply meant to illustrate that whatever else is happening in Hamilton, urban density still presents itself unevenly. I'll leave it to my betters to postulate about the reasons why this is the case.

By jason (registered) | Posted September 18, 2012 at 20:22:42
in reply to Comment 80985

many reasons...most notably, Hamilton is still sprawling as much as ever. Yet, downtown is seeing real estate values increase quite nicely and families are moving back downtown after decades of leaving. Imagine if we ever saw a council that made downtown a priority, or even put it on a level playing field with sprawl? I think it would boom.

"The Hamilton-Burlington economy will be the fastest growing in 2012 among Ontario cities tracked in a new Conference Board of Canada report.

The region is expected to churn out steady growth of 2.5 per cent this year, thanks to increases in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and will match that on average over the next four years, according to the Ottawa-based research centre.

And that 2.5 per cent figure is the actual gross domestic product growth recorded in the local economy in 2011.

Hamilton ranks fifth in projected 2012 economic growth among 13 cities tracked in the Metropolitan Outlook report. The top four cities are Edmonton, Calgary, Regina and Vancouver. Toronto comes in at sixth with 2.3 per cent growth and Ottawa-Gatineau, the only other Ontario city tracked, comes in last at 1 per cent.

The manufacturing and construction sectors will lead the way in growth for the *Hamilton-Burlington census metropolitan area, which also includes Grimsby....

Total construction growth is expected to come in at 3.8 per cent this year and then slow to 1.8 per cent in 2013.

After falling 31 per cent in 2011, the board predicts total housing starts will surge by 39 per cent this year thanks to steady economic and population growth and continued affordability. The board expects to see starts rise an average of 7.7 per cent from 2014 to 2016."

Of our oldest 5 kids, ranging in age from 17-24 years of age, none has bothered to obtain a driver's license. They know that we will not pay for their insurance or their gas, and have decided it is not worth the trouble and expense.

My three children ages 24, 25 and 28 all have their license...My 15 year old will go for her's on her 16th birthday.

I agree that we have to make our streets more friendly to INCLUDE safe walking and bikes, yet have difficulty swallowing the bashing on where I choose to live.

IMHO this entire discussion tries to push that we should all live in the core ~ taking away from my and my children's love for the rural way of life.

It would be great if we could work at having the BEST OF ALL WORLDS ~ moving forward!

Open, honest, sincere dialogue leads to change...throwing out non truths "buying urban houses is all they can afford" ~ "imagine if we ever saw a Council that made downtown a priority"~ Really? Take a look at all of the loans/grants etc. for STRICTLY the core for re-development, outside facade improvement, interior renovations, sewer back-ups etc...and then try to find any such thing for any suburban, rural howmeowner. (These subsidies, interest free perks are also alive and well for downtown busineeses.)

By fairness (anonymous) | Posted September 25, 2012 at 13:28:38
in reply to Comment 81230

"and then try to find any such thing for any suburban, rural howmeowner" Please tell me you're just taking the piss and don't actually think you don't enjoy huge grants and freebies as a suburban, rural homeowner.

Just one single corner at Peters Corners is costing $5.7 million dollars to turn into a roundabout to help drivers. http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog/2496/another_example_of_our_transportation_spending_priorities

Did you pay for that yourself? No, I helped pay for it (you're welcome) even though it doesn't help me one bit. It's called living in a society but you don't seem to think downtown deserves the same kind of support that lets you give your children a "rural way of life".

I'm pretty sure you're not a farmer, so you're just living in the rurals to enjoy it for it's own sake, let's not romantacize a lifestyle.

There's nothing wrong with choosing to live in the suburbs or exurbs or rurals. I don't think everyone needs to live in the core, but I do think what we pay for our lifestyle choices should reflect what those choices actually cost.

The public costs and negative externalities of suburban living - including the per capita cost of public infrastructure, energy consumption, air pollution and GHG emissions, not to mention the much lower per capita rate of innovation and economic development - is far higher than the cost of living in a more "location efficient" community, and the price of an individual's choice should reflect that.

Currently, the balance of financial and regulatory incentives provides a huge subsidy for suburban/exurban living while at the same time actively deterring more urban living with similarly huge financial and regulatory disincentives.

The modest programs City has put in place to encourage urban infill development are not nearly enough to overcome the overarching system of deterrence, particularly our toxic Zoning By-Law, which bluntly tries to impose a suburban land use and transportation form onto any effort at urban reinvestment.

The sprawling of Hamilton over the past several decades is not the "free market" at work, it is the predictable result of a massive program of subsidies for suburban living, including the highways and roads that make it possible to live far away from everything else and drive to all destinations.

Despite these huge ongoing incentives and disincentives, for various reasons the demand to live in urban environments has been increasing over the past decade or so, as young people increasingly decide they would prefer to live in a city than a suburb.

Hamilton is great at enabling suburbs for people who want to live in a suburb, but poor at facilitating urban neighbourhoods for people who want a more urban lifestyle. This produces several damaging results:

Our infrastructure is extremely inefficient. As it stands, every new suburban house built in Hamilton actually increases the city's net liabilities, since development charges and property taxes aren't enough to cover the lifecycle costs of suburban infrastructure.

The endgame of that strategy is currently playing out in Mississauga, which is experiencing big annual property tax increases and is now desperately trying to build a downtown core because it has run out of land to expand outward and its expensive suburban infrastructure is coming due for replacement.

Our downtown core continues to underperform, resulting in lower property values, lower property tax assessments, less efficient use of existing infrastructure, and - crucially - a lower level of innovation and new business development. This keeps us from becoming a centre of innovation - instead, we're left bribing existing manufacturers to consolidate their operations on heavily subsidized industrial parks with a net loss in regional employment.

Young people who want an urban lifestyle must go elsewhere to find it, and Hamilton misses out on the influx of a generation of young, energetic and creative citizens.

The bottom line is that we can't afford the suburbs and rurals you prefer unless the city is generating enough wealth to pay for it. That means we need to recalibrate the system of financial and regulatory incentives to make it a lot easier for people to live in urban environments - and to make it a lot easier for developers to build urban environments so that they don't become unaffordable.